“Comics Life is not a comics convention,” stressed Tristin Miller, who organized the March 31 event at Greensboro’s Revolution Mill with Acme Comics’ Jermaine Exum.
Greensboro artist and event organizer Miller is a longtime fan who thinks comic book conventions are great, but she and Exum wanted to do something a bit different with Comics Life, which she described as “more like a TEDx-style event centered around comics” in a recent phone conversation. “It’s about skill-sharing, networking, having real conversations. It’s an opportunity to connect on a deeper level and have a real talk about the industry.”
She said that doing the Greensboro Zine Fest, as well as seeing a variety of comics artists use the zine format to share information, had been a big inspiration and that the format was inspired by the Hand-to-Hand Market she’s been doing for the past eight years.
“So, the booths and the costumes and the boxes of comics for sale and the artist meet-and-greets, all the stuff you usually see at a comics convention, will only be one part of Comics Life. The meat of it will be the workshops, the panel discussions, and the presentations.”